Ten years after stunning the world by winning the UEFA Euro 2004 championship, and 20 years after its inauspicious World Cup debut, Greece is back on soccer's biggest stage. Pundits say Greece could advance past the group stage for the first time

The former Hellinikon International Airport site, a sprawling 600-hectare lot that closed in 2001, will soon be awarded to a private investor to develop it commercially, a reversal from original plans to develop it into Europe's biggest urban park

Marko Hren has spent a lot of time thinking about the 'what if' and believes that peace activists might have been able to prevent the slaughter that spread through the former Yugoslavian region in the 1990s

The challenge facing Romania is to create an economic dimension to its political and military relationship with the United States. A multidimensional relationship is inherently more self-sustaining than simply a political-military relationship

Although Greece's government has said it will not ban the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights said there is enough evidence of the party's support for violence to outlaw the group

With unemployment in Greece at 27 percent, it is not surprising to see both radical right- and left-wing groups gaining support from those who have become disaffected by the crises. The disenchanted are joining radical parties espousing a wide variety of ideologies

The ongoing economic crisis that has dropped hotel rates and food prices made Greece one of the most attractive destinations for tourists this year. Tourism revenues could hit record highs of as much as 12 billion euros this year

Lounging alongside the Adriatic Sea on the famed Dalmatian Coast, Split is Croatia's second-largest city, making it a bustling metropolis, serious port city, major transit hub, and top sightseeing destination

The Balkans are historically apart from Europe for two reasons. This has everything to do with the present crisis of Greece and the future of Greece's membership in -- or perhaps its departure from -- the European Union and its euro zone

It's no accident that Greece is the most economically troubled country in the EU. The fact that it is located at Europe's southeastern back door also has something to do with it. For Greece's economic and political development bear marks of a legacy not wholly in the modern West

Degrees in hand but no jobs and few prospects, many of Greece's young say they'll reluctantly abandon their near-bankrupt country and look for work and a new life in other countries. Others are just resigned

Not too long ago, when the military acted as the enforcer of a rigidly secular system, a politician in Turkey could be punished merely for reciting religious poetry. Now, with the military's influence waning and moderate Islamists firmly in charge of the machinery of state, government agencies are trying to punish a cartoonist, Bahadir Baruter, for blasphemy

The disintegration of Yugoslavia was a triumph of nationalist passions over political interests. If the latter had prevailed, the process would at least have proceeded peacefully. Some of those passions still remain, but the worst excesses have subsided

Like ghosts from the past, we see political violence, xenophobia, migrants being scapegoated and extreme nationalism creeping into our public debates -- even into our parliaments. This is a Europe diverging from its founding principles

One of the major problems plaguing the Balkans in particular is impunity. I talked with Milan Antonijevic, the director of YUCOM about the continuing human rights problems in Serbia, including the issue of impunity

Not too long ago, when the military acted as the enforcer of a rigidly secular system, a politician in Turkey could be punished merely for reciting religious poetry. Now, with the military's influence waning and moderate Islamists firmly in charge of the machinery of state, government agencies are trying to punish a cartoonist, Bahadir Baruter, for blasphemy

The statistics about gun ownership regionwide are surprising and the results can be deadly. In Albania alone, for example, analyst Jonuz Kola estimated this summer that 6% to 9% of the population has a weapon in the home. Scores of accidental shootings occur, including that of a 9-year-old

Kosovo and Turkey have what former Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu describes as 'golden relations', strong political and economic ties bound together by religious and cultural affinities developed over more than five centuries of Ottoman rule

For Greeks, October 28th is a revered day -- the anniversary of a 1940 response to Mussolini's demand that Greece surrender without a fight during World War II. But this year, Greeks are standing up to their government against what they perceive as sacrificing the country's sovereignty to foreign lenders

The expectations of the last ten years that the states surrounding the Black Sea would follow the example of the Balkan region and shape themselves into a security community have not been realized. Perceptions of stagnation have replaced the hopes of a working and stable geo-strategic framework, based on a balance of cooperation and conflicts

The European Commission has recommended Serbia to win EU candidate status, assuring it to grant EU entry to the Balkan state once it makes necessary progress in its relations with Kosovo, which has declared itself as an independent state

Speaking alongside leaders of the Balkan states at the New York Balkan Forum, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed the cultural and historical ties between Turkey and the Balkans, while calling on the region to overcome its troubled history to co-operate and integrate to form a common future

The Greek Parliament approved a new property tax, aimed at helping the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou meet the budget target under a 110-billion-euro programme of rescue loans from the EU and the IMF

Albanian political prisoners recall the past in terms of unsettled issues, having received no apologies either from their tormentors or the state, while many are still unable to find graves of loved ones executed by the regime

Whereas Turkey's foreign policy mantra used to be 'no problems with the neighbors,' Turkey now seems to want to become the chief bully in the eastern Mediterranean, escalating tensions between the NATO member and Israel, a key US ally

Turkish politicians are expressing concern that the country's booming economy is at risk as the nation's consumers binge on buying and borrowing while Europe struggles to put out the debt fire in Greece